Bajo sexto star Max Baca doesn't hear all that much difference between conjunto and Cajun music.

That's one clue as to why Max Baca & Los TexManiacs are playing the Cajun & Conjunto Third Coast Food and Music Festival at Texas Pride Barbecue on Saturday, opening for Louisiana favorites the Revelers.

The Grammy-winning Tex-Mex act, which includes Josh Baca on button accordion, drummer Lorenzo Martinez and bassist Noel Hernandez, is expected to hit the outdoor stage around 8 p.m.

The Lafayette-based Revelers close out Saturday night with zydeco, blues and country roots music.

It's a good fit, said Baca, whose band has shared a stage with the Revelers the past couple of years at the annual South Louisiana Black Pot Festival & Cookoff.

The common ground is found between the buttons and in the smiles.

“You've got the accordion, you know,” Baca explained. “The Cajun accordion is a one-row accordion. The music is so lively; it's very similar to conjunto, the happy dance conjunto music.”

Los TexManiacs (augmented with Flaco Jimenez and Augie Meyers of the Texas Tornados) played the Black Pot Festival last month. Baca said the band went into “turbocharge mode.”

“We played really up-tempo, happy conjunto music. They love it. We do the progressive, turbocharged TexManiacs stuff,” he said.

Translation: They played a lot of Doug Sahm stuff.

Saturday's gig comes a week after an emotional final performance at Ruben Castro's legendary juke joint, Ruben's Place in Selma, which was sold last month and is closed.

It opened as Castro's Service Station at the same site in January 1939. The food, music and the dances started soon after, said Castro's oldest sibling, Beatrice Castro Vasquez, 87.

“Now, it's like, where do you go?” Baca said.

“I really don't know. There was nothing like Ruben's, the vibe, the food. You'd just go sit down and check out all the memorabilia and vibe to the jukebox and drink cold beer and listen to conjunto music.”

The TexManiacs are up for a Latin Grammy later this month for the Smithsonian Folkways-produced “Texas Towns and Tex-Mex Sounds,” recorded at Blue Cat Studios.

“We've got some tough competition,” said Baca, adding that his band is in preproduction for an upcoming album that will be produced by Steve Berlin of Los Lobos. Unlike the two Smithsonian Folkway releases of traditional music, the new record will be pure Tex-Mex.

“It's going to be more modernized, but we're not going to deviate, either,” Baca said. “The concept will be like the Texas Tornados' first album.”

The Grammy winner said he wants to tap into that post-Sir Douglas Quintet magic, as well as the emotion that he felt playing at Ruben's one last time.

“It was very heartfelt, especially when Flaco played his last song, 'Las Golondrinas,'” Baca said. “It's a song about the swallows flying off into the sunset. It just brought tears to my eyes and chills. That's when it really hit me.”